aws-architecture-diagram-skill

AWS Architecture Diagram Skill

Quick start · Examples · Why icons break · Comparison · Contributing

One prompt. One .drawio file. Every icon renders correctly because the skill carries a verified catalog of 270+ stencil names, not guesses.

Watch the demo on YouTube

Works with any AI assistant: ChatGPT, Claude Projects, Kiro CLI, Claude Code, Cursor, or internal agents.

The problem this solves

AI agents generate broken AWS diagrams. Icons show as empty boxes because the stencil names are wrong. Layout is random. Styling is inconsistent. You spend more time fixing the output than you saved generating it.

This skill gives the agent the correct stencil names, layout rules, and styling conventions. The output opens clean in draw.io with no manual fixes.

Quick start

npx skills add vidanov/aws-architecture-diagram-skill

Install to a specific agent:

npx skills add vidanov/aws-architecture-diagram-skill --agent claude-code
npx skills add vidanov/aws-architecture-diagram-skill --agent cursor
npx skills add vidanov/aws-architecture-diagram-skill --agent kiro-cli

Install globally (available in all projects):

npx skills add vidanov/aws-architecture-diagram-skill --global

No CLI required:

1. Copy the prompt from chatgpt/PROMPT.md into your system prompt or custom instructions
2. Upload the reference files from chatgpt/references/ to the knowledge base
3. Start asking for diagrams

Tip: Set temperature to 0.3 for consistent XML output.

# Claude Code
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills/aws-architecture-diagram
cp claude/SKILL.md ~/.claude/skills/aws-architecture-diagram/SKILL.md
cp -r references ~/.claude/skills/aws-architecture-diagram/references

# Kiro CLI (global)
mkdir -p ~/.kiro/skills/aws-architecture-diagram
cp kiro/SKILL.md ~/.kiro/skills/aws-architecture-diagram/SKILL.md
cp -r references ~/.kiro/skills/aws-architecture-diagram/references

Usage

Ask for a diagram:

Create an AWS architecture diagram for a serverless API with Lambda, DynamoDB, and API Gateway

With export:

Create an AWS architecture diagram as PNG for a real-time data pipeline with Kinesis, Lambda, and S3

Example output

Event-driven order processing

"Create an event-driven order processing architecture with SQS, Lambda, DynamoDB, and EventBridge"

Download .drawio

Real-time IoT analytics

"Create a real-time IoT analytics pipeline with Kinesis, Lambda, S3 data lake, and DynamoDB"

Download .drawio

3-tier web application

"Create a 3-tier web application with CloudFront, ALB, ECS Fargate, Aurora, and ElastiCache"

Download .drawio

3D serverless API (isometric)

"Create a 3D AWS architecture diagram for a serverless API with Lambda, DynamoDB, and S3"

Download .drawio

3D e-commerce website architecture (isometric)

"Create a 3D isometric AWS architecture for an e-commerce website"

Download .drawio

Why icons break (and how this skill prevents it)

draw.io AWS icons have two patterns with opposite strokeColor rules:

Pattern	Style	strokeColor	Use for
Service-level	shape=mxgraph.aws4.resourceIcon;resIcon=mxgraph.aws4.<name>	#ffffff (required)	Main service icons (colored square + white glyph)
Resource-level	shape=mxgraph.aws4.<name>	none (required)	Sub-resources (silhouette icons)

Confusing these two patterns is the #1 cause of broken icons in AI-generated diagrams. The skill encodes the correct pattern for every icon.

draw.io stencil names also don't match current AWS service names. Renamed services keep old identifiers (OpenSearch is still elasticsearch_service in the stencil). The skill carries the correct mapping so the agent never guesses.

What the skill enforces

• Left-to-right flow (UI on left, data on right)
• 78px icons, strokeWidth=2 edges, AWS color palette
• Minimum 220px horizontal spacing, 250px vertical between lanes
• Two-step approach: generate XML, export to PNG, visually verify, fix if needed
• Only verified stencil names (no empty-box surprises)

Supported services (270+ icons)

Category	Examples
Compute	Lambda, EC2, ECS, EKS, Fargate
App Integration	API Gateway, SNS, SQS, EventBridge, Step Functions
Database	DynamoDB, RDS, Aurora, ElastiCache
Storage	S3, EFS, EBS
Networking	CloudFront, Route 53, VPC, ELB (ALB/NLB)
Security	IAM, Cognito, KMS, WAF
Analytics/ML	Kinesis, Athena, Bedrock, SageMaker

Known broken stencils (avoid these)

• mxgraph.aws4.dynamodb_table → use mxgraph.aws4.dynamodb instead
• mxgraph.aws4.dynamodb_stream → use mxgraph.aws4.dynamodb with label
• mxgraph.aws4.general_saml_token → use mxgraph.aws4.traditional_server

Comparison

Solution	Output	Editable	Zero deps	Verified icons
This skill	.drawio	yes	yes (markdown file)	yes (270+)
jgraph/drawio-mcp	.drawio	yes	no (MCP server)	no
awslabs/aws-diagram-mcp-server	PNG	no	no (Python+GraphViz)	N/A
awslabs/diagram-as-code	PNG/SVG	no	no (Go binary)	N/A
clouda.ai	PNG	no	N/A (SaaS)	N/A

No runtime dependencies. A markdown file, not a server. Output is native .drawio XML you can open, edit, and version-control.

Structure

aws-architecture-diagram-skill/
├── chatgpt/
│   ├── PROMPT.md                       # Universal prompt (any AI assistant)
│   └── references/                     # Icon catalog in .txt format
├── kiro/SKILL.md                       # Kiro CLI version
├── claude/SKILL.md                     # Claude Code version
├── references/                         # Icon catalog in .md format (9 files)
├── examples/                           # Example .drawio outputs
├── templates/                          # Base templates
└── docs/                               # Hero image, example PNGs

Contributing

PRs welcome:

• Found a broken stencil name? Fix it.
• Want to add a new AWS service icon? Add it to the correct references file.
• Layout improvement ideas? Open an issue or PR.
• Bug with a specific AI agent? Report it.

Contributors

• @svetozarm (Svetozar Miucin) · Kiro CLI install support
• @SyedSamrozeAli (Syed Samroze Ali) · 3D isometric diagram support

License

MIT

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